Chapter Text
“You’re just lucky,” Tony scoffs at her, trailing her through the cubicles, passed their desks, halfway to the elevator, still not willing to admit defeat.
“Oh?” She does not bother to expand on her words as Tony is more interested is being an impoverish loser than to actually listen to her when she tries to explain why he was not chosen for this case.
“Yeah, maybe if you’d listened to me when I—” she stops abruptly at the elevator, turning to face him in one brisk movement, making him stop less than half a foot from her, and for a moment, their proximity appears enough to distract him from the one-sided argument he was so involved in—a one-sided argument that she already explained to him did not matter because Vance had already chosen who was to take the lead “—are you trying to test my reflexes?”
“No, Tony, if I wanted to do that, I would do this.”
Without warning she tosses the case file at him, the one filled with instructions, the address to her safe house, the main locations she needs to familiarize herself with, a list dictating what she needs to wear, her alias, her background—everything he would eventually learn from working on the case from the office anyways. It does not matter if he learns it a few days early.
To her amusement, Tony catches the file, unfortunately the maneuver is more of a clap than a catch and he ends up dropping his coffee on the ground. But his mouth grows into a large grin as his morning caffeine absorbs into the freshly steamed carpets.
“Ah ha!” He points at her, both of his hands snapping open the file and his eyes scanning. “You’re Rose Eid.”
“The carpet has eaten your coffee.”
“Rose—Isn’t that old? Like an old woman’s name?” He briefly darts his eyes back to her, though they’re not exactly looking at her, as he squints in recollection. “Wasn’t she one of the Golden Girls?”
“I don’t know or care what that is.” She reaches for the file that he meticulously snatches away at the perfect time, enacting another game of predator and rodent.
“Ah, ah, ah,” he tuts, the file open and pinned behind his back. She does need the information back, particularly who to contact in the costume unit, but right now, she is purposefully setting him up for a bigger fall as payback for constantly haranguing her whenever she is chosen for an assignment that he wants to do instead.
This time his excuse was that he wasn’t in Vance’s good graces since he sideswiped an evidence van against a yellow-painted concrete pole which left a noticeable yellow stripe down the side. Then he lied—badly—that he didn’t know what it was from.
“You know McMopey isn’t the Boss’s favorite, it’s the only reason why—"
She makes a tactical decision to stop listening to him as he rambles, counting something on his fingers while circling her. Whatever the story is does not matter as the point is that she was never capable of earning these assignments on her own. Without another word, she leans back, depressing the button to take her down.
The point is—” Tony frantically flips through the papers in the dossier, crumpling corners and ripping edges that she cannot be sure is not intentional “—how are you supposed to be a hot ninja assassin with a name that belongs to a grandma?”
“Have you gotten to the second last paragraph of the first page Tony?” Sighing, she glances to the elevator light indicating she would need the file back shortly.
“What? No. Why?”
“Read it.” She gestures her hand with urgency as the elevator solemnly dings. “Quickly.”
“In order to draw out the suspect, Agent David will have to wear a prosthetic stomach to better match the characteristics of the known victims who were all in the third trimester of pregnancy when murdered…”
His voice trails off, leaving her in a stunning silence that she would welcome if it were not so unnatural. She does not know what Tony is thinking. Surely, he cannot be worried for her as she has proven herself capable and more lethal than him hundreds of times over the last seven years.
It must be his, hopefully waning, jealousy.
Standing in the mouth of the elevator she holds her hand to receive the file back, however, Tony keeps it close to him for another moment, his brows furrow as he looks at her. “You’re going to have to wear a fake baby belly?”
“Quicker than getting a real one.”
Gibbs rounds the corner towards their desks, easily side-stepping Tony’s spilled coffee a few feet back without even a glance at the ground.
The elevator starts to buzz, and the doors try to close on her, when she pushes them back. “Tony, I have to go.”
“You’re going after the Pregnancy Pact Killer?” His voice becomes softer, farther away, almost like a whisper in the middle of the night which clarifies his concern is now fueling him and not his envy.
Ordinarily, she would respond with irritation, at him wasting her time, at him belittling her ability to do the same job he does when she has more experience undercover than he does. Perhaps she could placate him, they have seen each other through hardships, and it is true that if he were going undercover for an extended period of time, she would be tentative to see him leave on his own.
Instead, she simply holds out her hand to receive the file. “I wanted to let you know why you were not chosen.”
“Yeah.” Almost in shock, he hands the file back to her, the tips of his fingers grazing hers, holding still momentarily. “The old genitals on the outside thing.”
Cannot think of a single sentence to not only accompany his, but to change the subject as no one can halt a conversation as completely as he can. Instead, she offers a weak smile, retreating back into the elevator, standing center so subliminally he can understand he is not along for the ride.
“Hey, maybe I can come down and judge how well they—”
The tone of his words, perhaps the urgency in which he speaks spreads a blush over her until she is certain her skin resembles that of a pomegranate. The forked relationship they have cobbled together over the years, with a malnourished spine and broken back from all their encounters, their arguments, disagreements from inconsequential to North Afrika. How did he so poetically state their relationship to her once?
Like two ships in the night, violently crashing into each other, dragging each other to shore.
She explained they were only unmoored, and he did not understand the joke.
Uncertain of their exchange as almost every conversation, stake out, interrogation, movie marathon, Paris hotel dialogue with room service is miscommunicated, mistranslated while speaking the same language. So much, too much, has happened that each are waiting for agreement from the other, while still fearing both reciprocation and the lack of it.
They live in a constant stalemate, a terra nullius, no man’s land, which historically has never resulted in overwhelming positive favor.
“It’s undercover, Tony,” she speaks gently, reaching forward and pressing the B1 button. “You’re not supposed to see what I look like.”
“True, yeah.” His words mix, launch out of his mouth faster than he can think as emotion conquers, suppressing logic. He’s trying to regain his composure, his hands on his hips while he does a half turn, shined shoes stepping right in his carpet coffee.
When he completes his rotation, he’s more grounded. “You’re really going to be gone for three months?”
Wants to reply only if it is not successful. If there is no movement at all, if she is unable to uncover any type if lead, she could be recovered earlier, but the killer has famously dealt with women over thirty-two weeks of pregnancy, and even if she is starting at six months, it is still many days. Discovering his abandoned turmoil, she frantically scrolls her mind for a method of communication they could use that could not be traced.
“Not if she doesn’t get downstairs, DiNozzo.”
The dull slap across Tony’s head rings through the empty floor, cubicles left gray with only a soft orange hue coming from their area. Gibbs says nothing to her, again expertly sidestepping the spilled coffee.
“Yes, Boss, of course.” Tony agrees to no one and nothing as his eyes grasp onto hers the way his hands cannot as the elevator doors start to close.
“And clean up that coffee.”